Secretive Swiss trader links City to Iraq oil scam

Special report: Next months UN report will drag British-based miner Xstrata into the controversy over surcharges paid to Saddam

THE oil tanker Artemis slipped its mooring in the Turkish port of Ceyhan on November 18, 2000, carrying 100m barrels of Iraqi crude under the United Nations oil-for-food programme.

The tanker headed for America to sell the shipment at a price pegged to West Texas crude.

It stopped off in Omisalj, a Croatian port on the island of Krk and the oil was put in a storage facility owned by the Croatian petroleum company INA. The diversion has since become a matter of dispute between the UN and the cargo’s owner, a Swiss commodities firm called Glencore.

The UN said Croatia was the final destination for the shipment and asked Glencore to pay it pegged to European rather than American prices. The difference was $3m and Glencore UK, based in Mayfair, London, sent the UN a cheque to cover that amount. Glencore said last week that Croatia was never meant